The Hungarian National Ballet’s production of Don Quixote at The Budapest Opera House was a joyful presentation. The energy and mirth emanating from the stage was infectious and intoxicating: I was practically jumping out of my seat with excitement by the end of the Act III pas de deux as Kitri, danced by Tatyjana Melnyik, balanced on pointe for what seemed an eternity.

LakehouseRanchDotPng mounted a riveting production of the daring show, XOXOLOLA. The small company in Miami focuses on experimental and absurdist works. LakehouseRanchDotPng just won a Silver Palm Award, recognizing theatrical excellence in South Florida.

Photographer J. Alexander Baker is featured at the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams with the exhibition The Big Picture Show. Recently he purchased a large format printer. This project explores the issue of scale and how bigger is better.

What a silent film can teach us – about history and the relationship between the visual and the auditory. The City Without Jews is a famous 1924 silent film directed by H. K. Breslauer who would go on to become a Nazi, probably out of convenience. In this film, he actually seems to like Jews, to find them charming, bright and funny. Presented at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York.

In 1983 Claude Gosselin founded le Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal. With great invention and wizzardry he curated lively and insightful versions of international sourced biennials. We covered a number of them for American arts publications. This article allows readers to brush up on their French.

During the 1920s, when Niels Bohr earned a Nobel Prize in physics, he collaborated as father and son with Werner Heisenberg. In 1926, with an appointment as chair to the University of Leipzig, he became Germany's youngest full professor. In 1941, with great effort, he returned to visit Bohr in Copenhagen. What transpired between them is unknown but is the content of the remarkable play Copenhagen now on stage at Berkshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge.

Opera Philadelphia knows how to produce opera. They recognize its multiple forms and multiple historic periods. No company in this country has spearheaded the development of new opera with such an effective program. Yet Philadelphia also continues to produce the tried and true with great style.

The world premiere of The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, is presented by the La Jolla Playhouse.  Fifteen years in the making, the musical envisions Hunter’s life from childhood to his tragic death. The book is by Joe Iconis and Gregory S. Moss, music and lyrics by Iconis, and choreography by Jon Rua.

I like to attend an event without reading the build-up. This gives me a chance to respond viscerally. Every event at the Park Avenue Armory is tasteful. Pierre Audi, the artistic director, provides this. He is unique in New York.

If you’re a follower of the regional jazz scene (and, the fact that you are on our mailing list suggests that you are), you may have already noticed that it is shaping up to be a busy autumn in the Berkshires. Starting with saxophone titan Grace Kelly this Friday at the Stationery Factory, something is going on every week…and often weekdays. Here’s a look at the first half of the season.  

Composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell strike gold with this focused bio that should find a place on the opera circuit. San Francisco Opera's stunning production along with superb performances make it even better. The title character is portrayed with all of his positive and negative complexity, and even operagoers who learn nothing new about Jobs will find the opera highly involving and entertaining.

Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) is now free to all visitors starting immediately. By ending paid admission, the museum advances access, accessibility and inclusion for our neighbors and surrounding communities.

Rene Orth’s opera 10 Days in a Madhouse enjoyed a World Premiere at the Opera Philadelphia Festival. A tip off to where the weight lies in the opera was the stage set, immediately apparent when we enter the Wilma Theatre. The set is dominated by a Richard Serra-like sculpture. Our eyes and then our ears are fixed up where the orchestra tops the sculpture.

Jersey Boys is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, from struggling to find their “voice” and getting started in 1950s New Jersey to the 21st century.

Berkshire artist, Sarah Sutro, is participating in Blue: The Celebration of a Color at the Somerville Museum. In Sutro's case the blue is from the saturated sky of her watercolor, "Blue Landscape. The group show has been curated by Martha Friend.

Last night I sat for my first ever Tarot reading. Well, Kindah. Not a full reading but just one card and a brief analysis. The format was devised to accommodate many visitors. Jane Hudson became energized explaining the significance of The Tower.  

The subtitle of the play suggests where it’s going.  But if you think that it may simply be misandristic, that wouldn’t be correct.  Given the crazy antics of these females who are close to the president, you could just as easily add the word dumbass in front of the word women.  In any case, the result is “POTUS,” a farce that had Berkeley Rep’s opening night audience laughing with glee from start to finish. But it's not for everyone.

One of the reasons John Zorn’s music attracts is that it’s so damn much fun. Leaping on and off the stage to introduce the numbers in his first of many 70th birthday celebrations at the Miller Theatre at Columbia, Zorn looked like he was going to last forever. And let’s hope he does. 

The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd is about a 12-year-old computer genius who convinces her uncle to travel back in time to repair her parents' relationship. A strong Florida Premiere production is running through Oct. 8 at Theatre Lab on Florida Atlantic University's campus in Boca Raton. The play won the 2022 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwrighting Competition at Alliance Theatre, where the world premiere production took place.

The title character is Manrico, a troubadour and leader of a Roma troupe.  Unbeknownst to anyone but his adoptive mother, he is of noble blood and the brother of his arch enemy, Count di Luna.  They contest not only in the communal and political world but for the love of a woman, Leonora.

Berkshire Fine Arts was fortunate to hear Stephen Gould sing Parsifal in Bayreuth two years ago. He retired from Bayreuth this summer when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer.

Lunar Eclipse, by Pulitzer prize winner, Donald Marguiles is having its world premiere at Shakespeare & Company. Directed by James Warwick it stars Karen Allen and Reed Birney. The playwright digs deep into the long marriage of the farmer and his wife. The drama of loss, legacy and end of life play out in the phases of an eclipse. The taut one act play is emotionally invasive.

One Cambodian-American sister has married a Christian pastor and has remained in Dallas, where the mother had resettled the family. The younger sister had moved to New York City, rejecting some of the family's values, but reconnecting with Buddhism. When their mother dies, the sisters face conflicts that extend well beyond dealing with death rites.

Horrors! Guess who's coming to dinner. Gomez and Morticia's daughter Wednesday has fallen in love and wants to marry a "normal" young man. She has even invited him and his family over for a meal. What can be done to stop such a fearsome turn of events?

By popular demand Barrington Stage Company brings back a world premiere by Mark St Germain on the stage that bears his name. The Happiest Man on Earth is a one-man show based on the holocaust memoir The Happiest Man on Earth published by Eddie Jaku when he was one hundred years old. It is profoundly performed by Kenneth Tigar.